THEE RANT

Friday, August 14, 2009

After two days of questioning suspects, detectives from the 88th Precinct arrested a 16-year-old boy in connection with last week’s brutal assault on Eddy Sanchez(Photo: left), a 22-year-old Pratt architecture student .

The 16-year-old, Eugene Adams (Photo: right), was charged on Wednesday morning with assault, robbery and criminal possession of stolen property. He lives at 1100 Bedford Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, three long blocks east from the site of the attack at Grand and Lexington Avenues. The police said they found Mr. Adams, one of at least five youths sought in the attack, through a tip called in to the Crime-Stoppers hot line, (800) 577-TIPS.

Mr. Sanchez is in critical condition in a medically induced coma at Kings County Hospital Center, the police said. (On Tuesday, we reported that Pratt was saying that Mr. Sanchez’s condition was serious, which is better than critical. Pratt now defers to the Police Department on this issue. The hospital itself is not giving out that information.)

Mr. Sanchez was attacked around 10 p.m. on Aug. 4 by a group of at least five teenagers who demanded his money and cellphone. When he resisted, he was beaten, kicked and hit him in the head with a crowbar, the police said. The police posted a video of them trying to use Mr. Sanchez’s bank card a short while later at the A.T.M. inside Classon Avenue Grocery at Classon and Putnam, six blocks from the scene of the attack.

Update | 2:36 p.m. Detectives are still questioning two other suspects, the police said.